So this article appeared on CNN a couple of days ago:

”Bummed out? Bad time to shop”

“…The results led researchers to conclude that sadness pushed participants to try to change their circumstances, which translated to a greater willingness to buy new things…”

At one level, we all know that you’re not supposed to go grocery shopping when you’re hungry, and we’ve heard jokes about retail therapy, and for sure, when that old urge for acquisition comes over me from time to time, I’ve grown to accept it as just part of my life that I need to remember to resist.

But the article did a good job of putting it in words that I’d never really used with myself before. After I read it, my main thought was, “gee, maybe if I’d read this the day before the burglary, I might not have bought a motorcycle the day after the burglary.”

As it was, it just seemed like a cool thing that was more or less falling into my lap, and it fit right in with my new insight that you should invest in big stuff. No one was going to throw a motorbike in a backpack! For days after, I was conceding that “maybe I wasn’t in my most stable frame of mind,” but never had I thought I’d been tricked by some lurking depression!

If I had been in a normal, rational place and not carried away by my auction addiction, I probably would have reasoned that I really didn’t need to spend thousands, that thousands could be better applied towards paying off the house, or picking up a cooler car to replace the current un-cool ride.

All that being said, I have to confess that I am insanely delighted to have the bike. Quite aside from having this one tiny slice of my life where I am finally cool, I cannot wrap my head around what a glorious thrill it is to zip down the road on a motorcycle. I have not been this enthused about motorized transportation since I was 16. I even had a motorcycle dream last night. How tragic is that?

I just had no idea that it would be such a completely different experience from being a motorcycle passenger, which always scared the willies out of me. But this is great. It’s all connection with the environment and flexibility and control and power. And oh, the power. The littlest roll of the throttle and the bike is delighted to whip forward at a nearly-instant 90mph to shoot you past obstacles, and then you roll off and you’re right back down in the real world again. I honestly have no clue how fast it might go. The speedometer caps out at 160, but I’ve never ventured past 95, which it does without any apparent effort.

Even though Allstate is not earning any respect from its dawdling handling of my claim, I suppose I should be grateful to the burglars for putting me off-balance enough to make a purchase I would never have made otherwise.

And what have I checked three times today? Weather.com, hoping for dry roads this weekend. Tragic, really.